Vijayawada: Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has advised young couples to have more than two children in their lifetime. He raised concerns over the declining population rate, pointing to couples in Andhra Pradesh adopting the double income, no kids and let’s enjoy concept.Addressing people at a Praja Vedika in Muppala village of Chandaralapadu mandal in NTR district on Saturday, the CM cautioned that if couples avoid having children for varied reasons, it will lead to India having a large presence of aged people, similar to the trends seen in several advanced nations of the world.Naidu went on to raise apprehensions that this trend might even lead to many villages having no population. He called upon young people to reorient their idea of family planning and have more children.The Chief Minister advised people to work smart with intelligence, so that they can realise their goals and contribute their share for development of the society. He recalled his childhood days saying, “When I was young, I used to walk to my school covering six to seven kilometres, crossing streams, forests and so on. I used to carry a food packet, instead of a carriage, to avoid carrying it while returning home. Now, days have changed.”Naidu claimed credit for initiating the second generation economic reforms after those brought in by former prime minister P.V Narasimha Rao. He said he has come up with several concepts like public-private-people partnership, seeking people’s support for developing infrastructure in Andhra Pradesh.Appreciating Telugus for being tech savvy and having the highest per capita income globally, the CM said he is aiming for AP’s per capita income to be ₹55 lakh by 2047 from the present 2.90 lakh. He listed out a series of benefits being provided to the various sections of the society in the form of enhanced pensions, when compared to the previous YSR Congress regime. He pointed out that they are making a direct transfer of ₹33,000 crore into the accounts of people every month in the state for various welfare schemes. Naidu said their government is coming up with a series of technological innovations. It will be the responsibility of people to avail services of the newly launched WhatsApp governance, wherein nearly 250 services are being provided, which would increase to 1,000 in the days to come. He asked people not familiar with WhatsApp to send a text message from their phone. Artificial intelligence will process this message and find out what kind of service an individual is seeking. A text message will be sent in reply after completion of the task the individual had wanted done. As part of his Praja Vedika, the Chief Minister visited a family. He inquired about the welfare and needs of the family. He prepared coffee on the gas stove and offered it to the family, apart from himself drinking it.Naidu offered to install solar power with limited capacity free of cost for SC families. The same could be offered to others, though with some cost. He pointed out that these families could generate their own power and use it, while selling the surplus power to the state for ₹2.09 per unit and receiving money.
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